Mikhail Zakharov
Mikhail Sergeivich Zakharov (b. 2 Dec 1925 - d. 19 Mar 1977) was the first President of the Democratic Republic of the Pacific, president of the Republic of the Pacific, and founder of the Progressive Party of the Pacific and the Pacifican Government Organization (1973-1978). Biography Early Life Zakharov was born Elizer Schtern on 2 December, 1925 to his father, Ikov Schtern (b. 1895- d. 1944) and his mother, Dhakva Bauchenvau (b. 1898 - d. 1969) whom lived in Warsaw, Poland. His mother, Dhakva, a Hungarian Jew, raised Zhkarov Jewish most of his childhood but became disconnected with religion as he approached his teen years. His father, Ikov, worked as a lawyer and was frequently involved in political activism. He was once arrested for protesting against the Polish government and supporting the Russians in their invasion of Poland in 1921. At the age of six, Zakharov was enrolled in the education system at Warsaw Central Primary School, where among his other subjects, he studied Russian - at the urging of his father. Zakharov's father was heavily involved in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's chapter at the Russian embassy in Warsaw - for which he was arrested several times on charges of conspiracy. At 14, he graduated from Warsaw Central Secondary School in 1939. Second World War When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September, 1939, Ikov Schtern told his wife to flee to Hungary so that he and Zakharov could go east to the Soviet Union. When the Soviets later invaded, Ikov used his connections with the Soviet Community Party to avoid capture or execution. Both Ikov and Zakharov enrolled unofficially with the Soviet Red Army, and joined their conquest eastward where Ikov worked as a translator for Soviet troops and officials. Due to his job, Ikov was sent back to Warsaw to work with Soviet and German occupation officials as a translator. After the end of the assault in Poland, Zakharov was transferred to the 4th Army, stationed in Poland. On 29 May 1941, Zakharov had his last contact with his father where he was told that he will go into hiding and assist the Polish Home Army and work with rebuilding the country with the Soviets when they would win against Germany. Puzzled, Zakharov made no note of this beyond his father's submission into hiding. On 1 June, 1941, Zakharov was transferred to the newly formed 62nd Army stationed in the bitter cold Caucasus on the Volga River. Just over twenty days later, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The 62nd Army moved westward to assist in efforts to defend cities in the Caucasus and the south-westren Soviet Union, but suffered loss after loss until it was pushed to the city of Stalingrad in August 1942. There the 62nd Soviet Army faced the 6th Army of Nazi Germany. Aquainted with his Russian comrades, he took on the Russianized name Mikhail Zakharov, and was recognized as a fellow Soviet soldier rather than the Polish volunteer. After winning the Battle of Stalingrad, the 62nd Army was absorbed into Gregory Zhukov's 1st Byleorussian Front and joined its campaign westward into Germany. After capturing the Polish city of Poznań in January, 1945, Zakharov appealed to travel to Warsaw to search for his father, Ikov. After interviewing several officials and commanders from the Polish Home Army, Zakharov discovered his father was killed in the 1944 uprising in Warsaw in Operation Tempest. Already on appeal for travel, Zakharov traveled to Hungary where his mother had fled since she had family living there. By then, the Soviets had liberated Hungary. When having reached his mother's hometown, Zakharov discovered it lay in ruin and the locals said that all the Jews were deported when the Nazis occupied the area. This brought Zakharov back to Poland, this time to Kraków. Here he discovered his mother had been sent to the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, where she had hardly survived persecution by the Nazis. By this, it was March 1945 and the Soviet Red Army was enclosing on Berlin. Citing family reasons, and using Party and military connections through himself and his late father, Zakharov and Dhakva moved to Warsaw to gather what they could and to assist in the rebuilding efforts. Life in the Soviet Union In 1948, paperwork had caught up to Zakharov and he was being moved within the 62nd Army, now the 8th Guards Army, from appeal to travel in Warsaw to Moscow. Mikhail Zakharov was to work as liaison for Lieutenant General Vasily Chuikov from the army's high command to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union because of his connections with the Party. Zakharov constantly tried to cover for his mother being Jewish, which was looked down upon in the Soviet Communist Party, as Stalin was an anti-Semite. This led Zakharov to harshly criticize Stalin when he had the chance, often in the 8th Guards' headquarters in Weimar, Germany. After the death of Josef Stalin in 1953, Zakharov and his mother moved to Leningrad as the liaison job was no longer necessary since Stalin's direct control on military movements no longer existed. There, Zakharov work with the Soviet Navy in sea-to-land operations and training missions. Most notably, he worked with crews ready to ship to Korea to help support the Chinese and the Communist Koreans in the Korean War. Later that year however, a ceasefire was declared in the conflict, and Zakharov was placed in the reserve force. In 1960, Mikhail Zakharov was reactivated from the Soviet military reserve force and placed to help with naval and land coordination with the Soviet Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok. His purpose there was to aid Soviet soldiers on how to assist others in naval operations - the intentions clearly were to help aid North Vietnam with its conflict with the South. Here, though, Zakharov found an open atmosphere far from the Party in Moscow. He regularly criticized the Soviet government, saying most often, that it hadn't reformed from Stalin's closed society. "No longer will the spectre of communism haunt Europe, for now, it is that of Stalin that will forever continue to choke the people of the Soviet Union and Europe for generations to come after his death" - Mikhail Zakharov, 4 March 1961 He supported Khrushchev's reforms, but felt that they did not go far enough. In October 1964, after Krushchev was deposed by Leonid Brezhnev, Zakharov officially resigned his commission from the Soviet military and formed the Solidarity of East Russian Peoples. The Solidarity Movement Category:Democratic Republic of the Pacific Category:Presidents of the Pacifican Republic